Am I undercharging?

Okay, so I have a friend who just got a business loan to start his business of buying and selling cars, essentially he's buying classic cars from one side of canada, and selling them in the other..

He's asked me to shoot photos for the cars as they come through my province, most shoots will be between 2 and 4 cars at the time and there will be between 10 and 15 photos per car. I asked him to throw a number at me for how much he thought he'd be willing to pay and he said $175/car. In January I'm supposed to shoot a 69 firebird, 70 challenger, and 68 camero, and the way I worked it out was $10/shot and between $25 and $75 for the PP depending on the amount of shots. Included in the number are 1 or 2 HDR's. I told him the number sounded doable and $525-$700 for a day of shooting cars is a lot of money to me being a student, but I'm just making sure others aren't making $5000 or something for the same stuff.

Also this is going to be a constant thing throughout the year, not just a one time deal.

$175 a shot seems fair assuming they are standard car shots and do not involve driving shots involving more complicated rigs and equipment. If that is the case, it is likely to take less than a half hour to shoot each car, and if you can shoot many at a time, the better you are.

Sadly, many dealers just shoot with a point and shoot, so this an area not a lot of folks are getting paid gigs for, so take the money while you can.

No no no...thats entirely not enough money!! You need to charge 5 brazillion dollars per car... (heavy sarcasm for those that will respond similarly...):p

If your work is consistant and your friend is happy with what you deliver for the price, Id take the 175 per car happily...assuming, like the above said poster said, that your not doing anything seriously fancy or time consuming as far as shooting or editing goes. Get an assembly line going and bang a bunch out in a day and make a nice little chunk of change. Once setup, I dont see any reason why you couldnt compose, shoot and edit a good handful of cars in a day.

Though, this is all based on assumption... I have no idea as to what quality of work you do. Id say for the average semi-professional who can make a decent picture, thats a fair rate.

No it's nothing too complicated, just 2 strobes set up likely in a parking garage at least over the winter.

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11400751
Okay, so I have a friend who just got a business loan to start his business of buying and selling cars, essentially he's buying classic cars from one side of canada, and selling them in the other..

He's asked me to shoot photos for the cars as they come through my province, most shoots will be between 2 and 4 cars at the time and there will be between 10 and 15 photos per car. I asked him to throw a number at me for how much he thought he'd be willing to pay and he said $175/car. In January I'm supposed to shoot a 69 firebird, 70 challenger, and 68 camero, and the way I worked it out was $10/shot and between $25 and $75 for the PP depending on the amount of shots. Included in the number are 1 or 2 HDR's. I told him the number sounded doable and $525-$700 for a day of shooting cars is a lot of money to me being a student, but I'm just making sure others aren't making $5000 or something for the same stuff.

Also this is going to be a constant thing throughout the year, not just a one time deal.

I own a 1969 Firebird. I'd like to see the pics when you're done!

For sure. The firebird is blue, the challenger is black, and the camero is black with white stripes (I'm most excited about that one), but the black plus chrome plus white is why I'm shooting in a parking garage, I think the snow here would be a nightmare.

/\ ^^
now theres a thought, what about your chances of making a calendar, or coffee table book, filled with the best of the best, to sell. There is even more money for you. Something the both of you might want to invest in and gain from.

It's impossible to determine whether $175 per car is appropriate until you've designed your workflow and determined your shooting costs.

It would a good idea for you to run a test session or two in the location you're considering to flush out any problems, as well as to provide a sample to determine what concept provides acceptable results. Controlling lighting and reflections on an automobile isn't all that simple, if the goal is for better than snapshots.

I'm confident that I'll be able to achieve results that both the client and I will be pleased with, but there's no possible way to set up a trial shoot, he lives 35 hours away from me and the driving time between where he picks the cars up and where he sells them is ~50 hours..it's pretty much a meet up for 2 hours, shoot, he leaves, I edit them, I show him proofs, he pays me, I email him the pictures, repeat.

SnapShot Photos wrote in post #11404582
I'm confident that I'll be able to achieve results that both the client and I will be pleased with, but there's no possible way to set up a trial shoot, he lives 35 hours away from me and the driving time between where he picks the cars up and where he sells them is ~50 hours..it's pretty much a meet up for 2 hours, shoot, he leaves, I edit them, I show him proofs, he pays me, I email him the pictures, repeat.

The shooting location is in your area, right? The cars will be coming through your location where they will stop for your session? Then use your car or borrow a car for a test session in the venue you plan to do the shooting.

If it's not a venue you fully control (you said a parking garage), a test session at the same day of the week and the same time you plan the actual sessions should help you flush out logistical problems. Will the garage be empty? Will it even be open? What is the garage traffic like on that day and time? What kind of conversations do you need with security or management--sometimes the people onscene don't get the message right even when you have the go-ahead from management...better to hammer that out before you've got the client's clock ticking.

How about things like insurance? Who pays if someone parking in the garage slams into a vehicle you're photographing (and how likely is that at the day/time you're contemplating)?

What will be the restrictions imposed by the property owner on your use, and how might those be influenced by day and time?

What will the lighting actually be (given time of day) and what additional lighting will you actually need? Lighting white cars is a wholly different ballgame from lighting black cars, and the environment (background and reflectivity issues) also matters a lot. That's another reason a test makes sense.

I have locations where I commonly do shooting sessions, and as often over the years as I've used the same locations, I still make a point of visiting them no more than a day or two prior to a session and rechecking or notifying property owners. It's always possible that, say, the city decided to open up the street or a property owner decides to tear down a warehouse he'd given me permission to use--but I wasn't on his "must notify" list.

RDKirk wrote in post #11404757
The shooting location is in your area, right? The cars will be coming through your location where they will stop for your session? Then use your car or borrow a car for a test session in the venue you plan to do the shooting.

If it's not a venue you fully control (you said a parking garage), a test session at the same day of the week and the same time you plan the actual sessions should help you flush out logistical problems. Will the garage be empty? Will it even be open? What is the garage traffic like on that day and time? What kind of conversations do you need with security or management--sometimes the people onscene don't get the message right even when you have the go-ahead from management...better to hammer that out before you've got the client's clock ticking.

I have one in mind, I used to shoot urban shots from the top, it's always empty on the top 2 levels, and it's open 24/7. Setting up some lighting in the empty spot, the management won't care one bit..I've had one of the guards offer to keep cars off the top when I was shooting up there before.

How about things like insurance? Who pays if someone parking in the garage slams into a vehicle you're photographing (and how likely is that at the day/time you're contemplating)?

The dude's insurance pays for it, he insures all the cars, and as long as we're in a designated parking area it's not our fault if someone hits us, if they hit my equipment, it's insured up to $10,000.

What will be the restrictions imposed by the property owner on your use, and how might those be influenced by day and time?

What will the lighting actually be (given time of day) and what additional lighting will you actually need? Lighting white cars is a wholly different ballgame from lighting black cars, and the environment (background and reflectivity issues) also matters a lot. That's another reason a test makes sense.

Indoor garage, lighting will be their lighting with my 2 strobes with grey backgrounds.

I have locations where I commonly do shooting sessions, and as often over the years as I've used the same locations, I still make a point of visiting them no more than a day or two prior to a session and rechecking or notifying property owners. It's always possible that, say, the city decided to open up the street or a property owner decides to tear down a warehouse he'd given me permission to use--but I wasn't on his "must notify" list.

see bold.

Get it all in writing and signed by both of you.

I have one in mind, I used to shoot urban shots from the top, it's always empty on the top 2 levels, and it's open 24/7. Setting up some lighting in the empty spot, the management won't care one bit..I've had one of the guards offer to keep cars off the top when I was shooting up there before.

Does that still apply for a commercial shoot?

The dude's insurance pays for it, he insures all the cars, and as long as we're in a designated parking area it's not our fault if someone hits us, if they hit my equipment, it's insured up to $10,000.

As Amphoto1 said, be sure you have that in writing. Insurance companies get hinky when presented with a situation that their understanding of the coverage did not envision, especially with regard to any kind of liability claim.

If, for instance, the automobile dealer's insurance policy states that it covers incidents occuring while the vehicle is in point-to-point transport, they may decide that an incident occuring during a photo stopover at a parking garage is not covered by their contract.

Another note, as I see you are in Canada, our copyrights laws are totally different from the US and many places in the world, when it comes to paid shoots!!!

Unless you have an iron clad contract that they sign, outlining that all rights are yours before you do the shoot and are paid, THEY own the rights to the images YOU created and you could have problems using them for anything else.

There was a lengthy post on another PRO forum where a Portrait Photog here in Canada didn't have quite the right legal wordage in his contract and a client demanded the files!!!!!

Few normal consumers might know this and might not read the finer print in a contract, as it applies to the Canadian market, but I would think that businesses and legal advisors to them, are fully aware!!

This is something I'm in the process of researching, but it seems to be totally opposite to other places!! if it is a paid, commisioned photo shoot!

Anyone who has more info, please shed some light on this, if I'm in err, hope what I've read so far is wrong, but doesn't seem so.

Congrats and good luck, remember, reflective surfaces can be a lot more challenging than it may seem at first glance and cars are a lot bigger than a person so harder to light and diffuse (+:

thats fine, the shots are for his sales, I've known this guy for a while, he'll let me put them up in my site and use them, I don't really care if the rights are his.